Have It All? Why We’re Asking the Wrong Question.

I woke up this morning to a message from a former student who’d sent me a link to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s cover story in the new Atlantic.  If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a brilliant piece that lays out the reasons why women still can’t have it all — and what we as a society […]

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Have it all? Yeah, right!

Once again, the “have it all” myth has reared it’s schizoid head.  This time, the poster-woman is Facebook’s second most famous face, COO Sheryl Sandberg, who graced the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday. Don’t get me wrong.  I love Sandberg.  We all do.  A graduate of the Harvard Business School (and […]

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Repeat After Me: Just Say No.

If we want to close the ambition gap, a good first step might be learning how to shake our heads. There’s this great quote from Feminist icon Germaine Greer: When we talk about women having it all, what they really have all of is the work.”  She was being somewhat facetious.   But then again, not […]

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The Year of The Woman, and The Hefty Burden of Making Choices

The Year of the Woman? Oy vey. It’s a phrase that’s always struck me as ridiculous. It would be one thing to declare it the Year of the Short, Redheaded, Left-Handed Woman, or the Year of the Unmarried, Urban-dwelling Thirtysomething Woman, or the Year of the Woman Who Doesn’t Want to Have It All, but, […]

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One More Reason Women Are Undecided?

I frequently hear from former students – usually bright, idealistic twentysomethings — long after they’ve exchanged their college dreams for, you know, reality. Often, these women are more than a little shell-shocked when they come face to face with the disconnect between their high expectations and life out there in the real world of work.  […]

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The Glorious Gloria Explains It All

It happened again the other day:  I was being interviewed by my introductory journalism class when I got The Question: Are you a feminist?  Of course, I shot back.  Beat.  Are you? The young woman was the tiniest bit flummoxed at being put on the spot.  Well, she said.  I guess it depends on how […]

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A Bad Investment?

Is it the end, or just beginning? Ye olde End of Men is in the news again; this time, author Stephanie Coontz is weighing in on how the headlines proclaiming The End of Men might be a tad premature. It’s territory we’ve covered before, to be sure, but there’s a new turf worth tilling. Namely, […]

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There is No Having It All, There is No Perfect (and, Spoiler Alert: There is No Santa Claus Either)

So, the subject of our book is certainly in the air as of late. First, Ann Marie Slaughter, and now, a piece on The Daily Beast by Debora Spar, whose take on the issues of women chasing perfection, juggling roles and choices in a not-adequately-changed world was, frankly, so similar to the things we’ve written […]

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My Moment with Michelle: Why “No Answer” Is The Right Answer

I had a serendipitous moment with Michelle Obama last week — just a few days before her transcendent speech at the DNC.  The occasion was an interview with the First Couple by Lynn Sherr and Maggie Murphy in Parade, the supplement that shows up in many local Sunday papers. I almost tossed the magazine aside, […]

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Me, a Cosmo Girl?

“Good girls go to Heaven, but bad girls go everywhere.” So said Helen Gurley Brown, longtime editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine and author of the bestselling “Sex and the Single Girl.” And while one can say what one will about Cosmopolitan magazine, few can argue that HGB was not a gamechanger. Don’t get me wrong: Cosmo […]

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